TOPIC:

Given that ZAR President Paul Kruger was one of the main protagonists of the Anglo Boer War, remarkably little seems to be written about him on this website.



I want to highlight one aspect of Paul Kruger that is perhaps less well known, that of him as an astute businessman. When Kruger died in Switzerland in 1904, his private holdings* were officially assessed at £ 101,725, well over £ 15 million in today’s money. Much of this wealth was at the time in (bullion) accounts in Holland at the private banks Scheurleer & Zoon in the Hague, Vlaer & Kol in Utrecht and Perks & Everts in Hilversum.

Although there are grounds to suspect that some of the assets in Kruger’s accounts may have been part of the state gold and valuables that were sent out of the Transvaal ahead of Lord Robert’s occupation of Pretoria in June 1900, Kruger’s wealth could also easily have been derived from his legitimate speculation in ground and mining rights.

The matter got my attention when I acquired a few years back a contract dating from 1860 in which -a then 35 year old- Paul Kruger sells a farm in the Rustenburg district. The contract, executed by the Landdrost for Rustenburg J.M. van Rooyen, pertains to the sale of a farm Boschfontein for an amount of just over 666 Rix Dollars** to a (if I read correctly) Mr. de Villiers.





As was tradition in those days, Kruger married in 1842 at the young age of 17. His wife was 14 at the time. Another tradition at the time was that Boers reaching the age of 16 became “Enfranchised Burgers” and were entitled to two 6000 acre (2428 Hectares) farms, one for crops and one for grazing. At the age of 16***, Kruger set up his home at the farm Boekenhoutfontein and acquired the following year, also the year he became a Veld Kornet, the farm Waterkloof. It is known that Kruger over his lifetime bought and sold many farms in the area, but Boekenhoutfontein (some sources mention Boekenhoutskloof) he retained during his entire life.



There are two farms with the name Boschfontein in the Rustenburg district. The sale contract however mentions “Onder Olivants Nek” (or below Olifant’s Poort) and therefor the contract must pertain to Boschfontein 193 on Jeppe’s map.

*I do not know whether this amount included Kruger’s ownership of Boekenhoutfontein and any other assets he owned in the Transvaal prior to the British annexation in 1900.

** Engelbrecht states that a Rix Dollar was equivalent to 8 Shillings. With 20 Shillings to the Pound and with the purchasing power of £1 in 1860 equal to about £ 154 in 2024, the sale price for Boschfontein equates to about 1 million Rand in today’s money.

*** Paul Kruger fought at the Battle of Vegkop when he was 11. He shot his first lion at the age of 14. Now look at the youths of today who at the age of 17 or 18 still sit on the parental couch playing computer games and expect moms to drive them to school because it rains a bit. 150 years of progress in a nutshell.

A very interesting article EFV and

*** Paul Kruger fought at the Battle of Vegkop when he was 11. He shot his first lion at the age of 14. Now look at the youths of today who at the age of 17 or 18 still sit on the parental couch playing computer games and expect moms to drive them to school because it rains a bit. 150 years of progress in a nutshell.

.....very succinctly but accurately put.

Regards

Rory

Boekenhoutfontein is now a Museum dedicated to President Kruger. Apparently the interior is from the time he lived there. The photo is borrowed from the museum's website and shows the road leading up to the house, visible in the distance.

Everhard, that's fascinating.
A recent (2014) research paper identified at least 46 farms which he owned at some stage, incl. at least 27 farms in the Rustenberg district: see "S.J.P. Kruger and landownership in the Transvaal" which I'll attach here.
Can I ask, how confident are you that your photo labelled Paul Kruger is correctly identified? I may be wrong (I often am) but I don't see a close resemblance to the published portraits of Kruger.

Rob, thank you for that extensive list which, as you have undoubtedly noticed, includes Boschfontein 193. When I included the picture I had my doubts as well as the picture probably dates from the 1870's and the man pictured looks well beyond 50. I have dug up something less doubtful and replaced it.

For Sale: Weathered picture of second runner-up of the 1878 Potchefstroom Kruger lookalike competition.

The article by Johan Bergh that was included in Rob’s post contains some interesting information. Kruger didn’t believe in banks and applied most of his savings towards the purchase of farms. He also asked at times that the ZAR State treasury was low, to be paid in ground. As stated, there are 40 farms (Rob’s 46 includes some double counting) identified as having been owned by Paul Kruger at one stage or another; Bergh asserts there must have been even more. Many of these farms were on-sold by Kruger for low prices to family members or sold for profit, among other to Volksraad member for Rustenburg Herman Jeppe, a man who coincidently is also mentioned in the contract above.

Kruger’s most fortuitous farm purchase was the farm Geduld east of Johannesburg; bought for 700 Pond in 1886 and commercialised with surface rentals and a coal mining contracts with the NZASM to the tune of thousands of Ponden per year. Kruger eventually sold Geduld in May 1899 (the man seemed to have had a nick for timing) for well over 100.000 Pond based on the value of prospective gold deposits.

Anecdotally, it is mentioned in the literature that Kruger loaned 40.000 Pond of the sale proceeds of Geduld to the ZAR Treasury when the state finances ran low a few months later. According to these sources, repeated in Bergh’s article, the loan was never repaid. I originally had my doubts about whether this loan actually had been made, but Professor Malan, in his book “Kruger’s Gold” shows a picture of the actual cheque and deposit slip. I have researched the finances of the ZAR before and during the war quite extensively. It is true that the ZAR Treasury was indeed low at the beginning of the war but that was for a considerable part due to sending huge sums (a.o. 240.000 Pond equivalent to 60.000 ounces of gold) to ZAR operated private bank accounts in Holland. During the first 7 months of the war, the budget of the ZAR ran at a large surplus, for the lion part because of the gold production under Munnik. As such, when Kruger left Pretoria ultimo May 1900, the ZAR Treasury could easily have covered the repayment to him from either the moneys available in the Transvaal (estimated by me at 2.4 Million Pond) or from the funds available to the ZAR in Europe (Estimated by me at 1.3 Million Pond.) Add to this the fact that Kruger was known to be rather "On the penny" (e.g. asking a cut from book rights and other enterprises around the personae Kruger) and it seems unlikely that the old President wouldn't have insisted on repayment when he knew ample funds were available. So perhaps the loan was repaid, secretly, with the statements to the contrary based on the desire of the ZAR authorities (Secret ZAR Government meeting of early May 1900) to keep the enemy in the dark about the true status of the country's finances.

As for Kruger's Transvaal landholdings, it would be a worthwhile exercise to research which farms he still owned at the time he left the country, whether these farms (if any) were taken into account when his estate was calculated, and what happened to them after the war.